The Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Dr Akwagaga Enyia, has re-affirmed the commitment of the Commission to assist people living with disabilities through skill acquisition programmes to give them sustainable livelihoods.
Dr Enyia stated this during a courtesy call by members of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities, JONAPWD, at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt. The NDDC boss was joined at the event by the Director Finance and Supply, Dr. Linus Ogbalubi; that of Commercial and Industrial Development, CID, Dr. Osmond Adiele and Dr. Prince Alazigha, of Youths, Sports and Women Development.
The NDDC Chief Executive Officer stated that the Commission’s Directorates of Youths, Sports, Culture and Women Affairs, and that of CID were fully mobilized to engage with people living with disabilities and directed that they be accommodated in the various skills acquisition programmes being rolled out by the NDDC.
Dr. Enyia charged them not to see themselves as disabled, urging them to keep to their resolve to shun violent confrontations but to embrace dialogue instead. She promised that the Commission would study their requests for assistance in various areas for necessary action.
Earlier in their address, the regional Chairman of JONAPWD, Mr David Enogho, promised that the group would no longer be confrontational in making their demands. This, he said, was because the NDDC had given them the opportunity to use dialogue to settle outstanding issues.
He said: “The underdevelopment of the region has compounded the challenges facing us as persons with disabilities. We are forced to live in inappropriate conditions. We experience hell while on earth as a result of the unwillingness and neglect by those in positions of authority to evolve functional and sustainable mechanism to address both the human and infrastructural development of the people of the Niger Delta region.”
However, he noted: “Whenever God wants to put smiles on the faces of people, he appoints a woman. Hence, to us, your appointment is divine. Therefore, we wish to appeal that you use this God-given opportunity to evolve plans and programmes that will empower us, thereby enabling us to maximize our God-given potentials and contributing our quota to the development of the society.
The NDDC had, at various times, trained and empowered persons living with disability in different vocational skills in the nine states of the Niger Delta.